Tempt Me: A First Class Romance Collection

by Jessica Hawkins

  “Mmm,” he says when I approach. “Take off your clothes.”

  “Here in the hallway?” I ask.

  “Would you?”

  I tilt my chin down, keeping my eyes on his. Is he serious? By his silence, I think so. He seems to think I’d do what he says. I glance down the hall, even though we’re alone. Maybe I would. Apparently, I trust him already. I don’t believe he’d hurt me. Unlike the other men in my life, Finn doesn’t pretend to know what’s best for me. For that reason, I almost trust him more than them.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He cocks an eyebrow, looking pleased. “Good girl. I won’t make you. Not tonight.”

  I’m relieved, but only slightly. I’m also curious how Finn’s face would look as I undressed for him here, on display for his neighbors. Not that I’m bold enough to take that kind of initiative. “You look good in the suit. Uncomfortable . . . but good.”

  “I used to wear one every day. I wish I could say this is the first I’ve put it on since I quit the nine-to-five, but it isn’t.”

  Finn in front of a computer all day, adjusting his tie, retiring to the break room, eating lunch in his office? I can’t picture it. He needs to be free of a cage. It’s suddenly clear how well—and how little—I know him. “What’d you do before this?”

  “Wall Street.”

  I start to laugh but stop when he doesn’t. He isn’t joking. He mentioned business school, but Wall Street is a whole new ballgame. “Seriously?”

  “It was all wrong for me.”

  “I never would’ve guessed.”

  “It was what I had to do for my baby.” He shrugs dejectedly. “Anyway, I thought being an artist would mean I never had to answer to anyone, but first impressions matter. In a suit, clients treat me more like a businessman than the dreamer I am.”

  I smile. “Dreamer, huh?”

  “You should know that about me,” he says seriously. “That stuff in the past with Kendra and Sadie—it’s been hard, but I’m still a romantic guy. I’m even glad for it if it brought me to you.”

  He says it simply, as if it isn’t a powerful declaration about our relationship. He’d be grateful for his failed marriage, devastating affair, and broken heart . . . because of me? Someone he’s known two weeks? I don’t doubt my feelings for him, but it’s a lot for me to live up to.

  “Kendra teased me about being so idealistic all the time,” he continues. “She’s no-nonsense.” He glances down the hall, specifically at 6B. Is it a habit? He did it the first time I came to his apartment, and this morning while we were leaving. “I don’t even think Sadie liked that about me.”

  The admission makes me want to hug him. I do like it about him. Even if it comes with some pressure, being the center of Finn’s attention is heady, intoxicating. “Well, I love it,” I say. “Rich and I were missing that in our relationship—” I pause. Finn might’ve brought up his exes, but they’re much further in the past compared to mine. I don’t want him to worry I’m still hung up on Rich. “Is it okay to talk about him?”

  “As long as you know I’m taking notes.”

  I smile a little and touch his tie, admiring how the hallway’s buttery lighting turns silver to gold. “I’m a closet romantic, Finn. That’s my dirty secret. My journals, yes, they’re sexy, but they’re really about love.”

  “I know.”

  “What I’m trying to say is, I like that you’re so passionate and creative.” I tug on his tie. “But I don’t mind this, either.”

  “Yeah?” He grins. “Suits do it for you? To me, it still feels like armor before battle.”

  I work around men in suits every day, but none of them look like Finn does now. He’s in charge, and surprisingly, I’m comfortable with that. I’ve been fighting to regain control from Rich and my dad, yet I’m almost willing to hand it over to Finn. And the suit? It just highlights that. It’s his command over me personified. “Even right now?” I ask, with a few bats of my eyelashes.

  He slips his arm around my waist and leans in for a kiss.

  “Wait.” I push his chest. “You haven’t eaten anyone’s ass today, have you?”

  He laughs. “Just yours. While you were sleeping. You thought that was a wet dream, didn’t you?”

  I squirm in his grip. I’m still not ready to admit I enjoyed what he did in the shower the other day. It wasn’t just the sensation of being licked there, but the knowledge that what he was doing was beyond wrong. Dirty. Forbidden. Probably illegal in some states. And also . . . I think it was what ultimately impelled me into an orgasm. I can’t imagine anyone in my life who’d ever do that or want it done. Except Finn.

  I let him kiss me.

  As if I could help myself.

  I melt for his kisses, and he knows it. I’ve gone to work the past few days and thought about his tongue down my throat, his hands gripping me anywhere and everywhere he can reach, his cock bulging all the fucking time. Two days in a row, I’ve locked my office door and shut my blinds to get myself off.

  Which reminds me.

  “You’re not going to post that picture I sent you, are you?” I tease when he comes up for air.

  He just grunts, pulling me against his erection.

  “Does that mean you liked it?” I ask.

  “Why do you think I’m practically on top of you in the doorway?” he asks. “Why do you think I texted back nothing but gibberish and emoji?”

  I smile and let him pull me into the apartment. The photo wasn’t much—a close-up of my lips, blowing him a kiss—but it’s out of character for me to send an unsolicited picture.

  “I should probably thank you for the lady giving me the job today.” He puts my handbag aside and removes my scarf and coat. “I had a boner during the interview thanks to your picture.”

  I cover my mouth. “Is that true?”

  “Yeah, Hals. You can’t just send me that shit without warning. Your juicy, pink lips, knowing all the places they’ve been on my body? My eyes nearly popped out of my skull in the waiting room.”

  I can’t help giggling at his earnest expression. “I’m sorry. Really.” I remove my heels. Sweet relief. “I won’t send anything like that again.”

  He gives me a look. “Naked. Now.”

  “But you’re dressed.”

  He undoes a button at his collar. “Then we’ll both get naked. How was work?”

  I sigh, following him into the living room. I flop onto the couch while he sorts through his mail. “Blah.”

  “Why?”

  “Just one of those days where whenever I got a minute, something else popped up.”

  He flips an envelope over before tossing it on the coffee table. “You eat lunch?”

  “Benny brought me something but honestly, I couldn’t tell you what it was. It’s probably still on my desk behind a stack of papers.” I’m exaggerating. Most of what I do is digital, and food doesn’t exactly interest me these days anyway. I’ve been battling bouts of nausea. As far as withdrawal goes, I’ve mostly gotten off easy with a few random headaches and an uneasy stomach. There’s no use worrying Finn, so I skip over that. “And to make matters worse, Rich and I can’t avoid each other, so he was in my office being annoying.”

  Finn looks up. “What?”

  “What what?” I ask.

  “Why’s Rich at your office?”

  I sit up a little. “He works there. For my dad. You knew that.”

  “No I didn’t.” He drops the rest of his mail on the table. “You told me your dad founded the agency, and that your dad introduced you to Rich. That’s all.”

  “Oh. Well.” He’s right. It hasn’t come up. I didn’t intentionally omit it, but . . . maybe out of subconscious self-preservation. I have been avoiding talking about Rich’s job. “He works on my floor, but his office is all the way—”

  “Halston.”

  I cross my legs underneath myself. “I guess I should’ve told you.”

  Finn sits on the coffee table in front of me. “Does he bot
her you?”

  “Just about work stuff. Mostly about work stuff.” So far, I’ve managed to avoid being in the same room with Rich and my dad since deciding to keep the relationship charade going. But Rich is being his usual ostrich self about this break-up, pretending everything’s normal between us, even when we’re alone. Once in a while, he even surprises me with a sweet comment or gesture. “We have projects together, you know?”

  “No, I don’t know. Tell me.”

  My hair is suddenly scratchy on the back of my neck. I twist it up into a makeshift bun as I talk. “He’s an account manager. A liaison between the client and the agency team. Sometimes we have to work together on things.”

  He leans his elbows onto his knees. “I’d think you would’ve mentioned seeing your ex every day. Is there a reason you didn’t? Do you still have feelings for him?”

  I stop messing with my hair, taken aback by his bluntness. “Not romantic feelings, no.”

  “But other kinds?” he asks. “Because people look for all kinds of things from a relationship, and if he gave you something I don’t—”

  “No,” I say. “It’s not that. Not at all.” Knowing Finn’s sensitivity to cheating, I should’ve been more upfront. I can’t fault him for being a little paranoid considering his history. “I didn’t keep it from you for that reason. If anything, it was something else.” Finn values honesty. He won’t be mad, as long as I tell him the truth. I think. I look at my hands. “I guess on some level, I was afraid if I told you we worked together, you’d ask about Rich’s job. And Rich . . . he has a lot of sway in his position.”

  “Meaning?” Finn asks.

  “He can make changes or decisions about lots of things if he wants, including creative. In some cases, he’ll hire or recommend people for jobs. Like photographers for print or digital campaigns.”

  He sits back. “Oh.”

  “I could’ve given him your card when I met you. Or any time since then. But I haven’t. I feel weird about that.”

  “You didn’t like my portfolio. Why should you recommend me?”

  I open my mouth. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “It’s true, though, Halston. You implied my older stuff was boring.”

  “It isn’t boring.” I hold his gaze so he knows I’m telling the truth. “I said it lacked something, but the photos you took of me? They’re everything, Finn. They don’t lack a single thing. If I showed him your work, we’d probably hire you, but . . .”

  “I get it,” he says when I don’t continue.

  “It’s selfish. I want you all to myself. If Rich hires you, it changes things. That first time you took my picture—it never would’ve happened if you were working for my boyfriend.”

  “I understand.” He runs a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up like straw. “I mean, fuck. I just had no idea you’d even seen him since that phone call. It’s going to take me awhile to get used to that. Hasn’t that been weird?”

  “Very.” He looks concerned, so I add, “It’s nothing I can’t handle. It’s amazing how little I feel for someone I spent two years with. Because with you—it . . . it’s the opposite. If you walked out of my life tomorrow, I’d be,” I swallow thickly, “I wouldn’t even go to work. I’d be in bed for a week. I’d be—” Oh my God. It’s the truth, and it makes me sick to my stomach. Two weeks in, I’m already in too deep. But shouldn’t I have seen this coming? Finn told me he might be obsessed early on, and given my history to nearly smother what gives me comfort, his admission gave me an excuse to obsess back. Now that we’ve been fucking morning and night, how could we not be here, sunk into each other like we’re bodies of quicksand? “I’d be heartbroken.”

  Finn covers my hands with his. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not mad. But I am a little, I don’t know, jealous. I told you I have issues with that shit.”

  My palms get clammy. There is one more detail I haven’t mentioned—my dad still believes Rich and I are together. It isn’t true, though, and it has no effect on my relationship with Finn. Once the holidays are over and my dad is feeling normal again, that will end. I could see how Finn’d take it the wrong way if I told him now. If it comes up later, maybe then. “You’ve talked about the affair, but help me understand the issue,” I say. “If you’re the one who cheated on your wife, why are you so worried about it? Aside from the obvious reasons.”

  He rubs his jaw. The scrape of fingers over stubble reminds me of his scratchiness on my cheek. If this weren’t a serious conversation, I’d interrupt it with a kiss. “It’s not the physical cheating per se. The affair only lasted a month or so. It started when I moved in here a year ago. She was my neighbor.”

  Neighbor. That’s why he always looks across the hall when he opens the door. “6B?” I ask.

  He nods. “I was in a bad place. I felt strangled where I was, so I got an apartment in the city and gave Kendra an unfair ultimatum: move with me, or we’re done. Sadie, she was unhappy. I just had this draw to make her smile or laugh or drop her guard for a few minutes. I chose her over Kendra. I made promises. I gave her everything I could in a short amount of time because I wanted to win her.” He loosens his tie. I just process it all. It isn’t easy to hear that he recently offered someone else his love, but I doubt it’s half as hard as having to admit that to me. I keep listening. “I’d actually met Sadie once in college and she’d left an impact on me. So when I moved in across the hall from her, I thought it was destiny. That’s why I went all in without a safety net. I thought fate was on my side, and I could blame everything on that, including hurting Kendra.”

  I knew Finn was a believer in fate, especially considering his comment earlier about past heartache being worth it to meet me, but it runs deep for him. He’s truly invested in the concept. Finding my journal, and then me, must mean a lot to him. I’m glad. I also think it was more than chance. “What happened?” I ask.

  “In the end, Sadie chose her husband over me. It hurt. I could’ve lived with her staying with him out of obligation, but the truth is, she wanted him.”

  Finn thinks he wasn’t enough for her. Maybe it’s because I’m not part of the situation, but I know instinctively that isn’t true. Whatever reasons Sadie had for choosing her husband didn’t have anything to do with Finn not being good enough. “I’m not going to choose Rich over you,” I say slowly. “By leaving Rich, I’m choosing myself. He—that life—wasn’t right for me.”

  “You say that now, but things change. I didn’t choose Kendra because I loved her. I did it for Marissa, to feel good about myself, to please Kendra’s family. It’s not always about love.”

  “That’s not how I see it. There’s love in all those decisions you made, if not for Kendra, then for your unborn child.”

  “It was a complicated situation, just like yours.”

  Rich offered me things I thought I wanted—security, love, and, in some ways, understanding. Even if he liked me best in a box, and noticed me because of my dad, Rich wasn’t a bad boyfriend. He could have had his pick of women when I met him, but even though I was heavier and being treated for depression, he’d still chosen me.

  “Did she—Sadie—ever say she’d leave her husband for you?”

  “Not until the end. I assumed a lot of things would happen that didn’t. So I’m trying not to do that with you, but I’m not doing a great job of it.”

  As far as I can tell, he hasn’t held back yet, and I don’t want him to start. “I’ve trusted you with a lot, Finn. My body, my words, my secrets. You could hurt me with everything you know.”

  “I wouldn’t,” he says. “And I love what we’re creating. I wouldn’t destroy that.”

  What we’re creating. Finn took my photo mid-fuck on Saturday and posted it. Every time I see it, I get a thrill. All his photos of me are beautiful and never explicit. His hand around my throat is just that, but his gentle hold juxtaposed with the obvious power he has makes it erotic. More so with my journal entry as the caption. Only he and I know the
truth behind it.

  Now that he’s brought it up, I get a craving to see the photo again. Has anybody commented or liked it since I looked this morning?

  As of my train ride to work, Finn has posted nine of our photos, including one today.

  That amounts to four hundred seventeen followers. Finn’s meticulous about lighting and uses the same settings to give each photo a faded, gray-ish quality that enhances the details.

  I’ve kept a running tally of likes per photo. My fingers dipped in a mug? Fifty-nine. Sucking coffee off them? A hundred and ten—our most popular photo until today’s, which has a hundred and seventeen. It’s my hands splayed over my bare knees, my thumbs pressing into the skin of my inner thighs. Not even our best one, but with each post, our reach grows. As do likes and fans.

  Comments too.

  Fucking hottt

  What’s this quote from?

  Sexy account

  No tits???

  This ones kinky, love it

  There are even more, mostly people tagging other users. The first two still make my stomach flip.

  “Speaking of, I have something to show you,” Finn says, calling my attention back. He gets his cell from the pocket of his slacks. “A couple hours ago, this really big account shared our last photo.”

  My heart skips. I try to see upside down as he navigates to the app. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.” He finds the account and passes me the phone. “Look.”

  I take it, and when I see the number of likes, my jaw hits the floor.

  One-thousand, two-hundred-fifty.

  Holy shit.

  Make that fifty-one.

  Fifty-two.

  I cover my mouth. My words are there too, for everyone to read. There are over thirty comments. “When did this happen?”

  “A few hours ago. It’s an account featuring up-and-coming artists. Photographers, writers, painters. But really good, progressive work. I’ve been getting a ton of new followers from it.”

  “How’d they find us?”

  “Someone tagged them in a comment on our photo. I did a little research. Accounts like this one get a lot of followers just from reposting other people’s photos. They’re called feature accounts.”